Seventh Night Summary (M.Antenet Blessy)

M. ANTENET BLESSY

Chapter 8 - The Seventh Night (Summary) in “THE WHITE TIGER”:

Balram informs the Premier that this will be his final letter, and that he will explain how he transformed himself from a layman into a successful entrepreneur.

After picking up Dharam, Balram travels to Bangalore on an indirect route, frequently switching trains to avoid being tracked. Once, at a tea shop in Hyderabad, Balram saw the police poster with his image, but he was able to talk freely about it with another person. Since the photo could be of “half the men in India,” i.e., the people from Darkness. Balram admits that it took several weeks for his nerves to calm after he arrived in Bangalore. He is eager to experience life in the South, which is culturally distinct from the North. The cuisine and language there are different, and the poor people in Bangalore drink coffee rather than tea. Further, Bangalore is full of outsiders, which made it easier for Balram to blend in.

To learn how to best succeed there, Balram listened to the “voice” of the city, eavesdropping on street conversations. Through this process, he determines that he should get involved in the outsourcing business. Learning that call center workers trade shifts at 3 am, which makes transportation difficult and dangerous, he decides to start a taxi service to transport these workers. As a first step, he contacts a Toyota dealership to rent a fleet of cars. Unfortunately, when he offered his driving services to the outsourcing companies, he learns that they already have taxi companies on hire for their workers. Using a lesson he learns during his time in Delhi, Balram then bribes the police to shut down the other taxi services by raiding their offices and penalizing them for hiring unlicensed drivers. As a result, his company - White Tiger Drivers - becomes successful amongst the outsourcing company employees, eventually using 16 drivers and 26 vehicles to meet demand. Now, Balram is worth 15 times the amount of money he has stolen from Mr. Ashok. Furthermore, he has adopted a new name: Ashok Sharma, taken from his former employer. He treats his employees professionally, not like servants, but does not get to know them personally. He enjoys the new lifestyle of a man of wealth, often consorting with prostitutes in five-star hotels.

Balram then discusses the future of India. The people in India expect freedom to come from elsewhere rather than expecting from them. Next, Balram explains why he has to abandon his narrative so suddenly on the fifth night. One of his drivers, Mohammad Asif, accidentally hits a boy riding on his bicycle. When Balram receives the call, he abandoned his letter to the Premier, told Mohammad to call the police, and rushes to the scene. There, Balram meets a police officer whom he knows, as well as the dead boy’s brother, who screams at Mohammad. Balram secures the driver's release, explaining to the brother that he would take responsibility as the vehicle's owner. At the police station, Balram visits the victim’s family to apologize, offering them 25,000 rupees and a job for the surviving son.

Balram then reflects upon his family's fate. Considering that they would then have to live as beggars in a city, Balram does not necessarily hope they survived. He admits that the Premier might view him as a monster for sacrificing his family, but he maintains that the only difference between him and anyone else in the Darkness is that he has woken up, while the rest are still sleeping. Dharam is given good education at an English school in Bangalore by Balram. At times we can find Balram admitting that he misses Mr. Ashok, and that the man does not deserve his fate. He wishes sometimes that he has killed the Mongoose instead. Balram concludes his final letter by speculating about Bangalore's future. He reasons that everyone with power has killed someone on their way to the top. Eventually, he hopes to open a school for poor children in Bangalore, to train the next generation of White Tigers. While he is frequently convinced that he has successfully broken out of the Rooster Coop, he is also frequently aware that he could still be caught. Regardless, he refuses to regret having killed his master.